The tremor does not come from the chamber.
It comes from him.
Malfious lifts one hand, palm open, fingers relaxed. The space around it thins, like the world is holding its breath too long.
"I was hoping," he says, voice calm, almost disappointed, "that you would learn restraint before this part."
Armilio takes one step forward.
The ground does not crack. It submits.
Stone flows beneath his foot, reshaping itself to bear the weight of something that has never yielded. The Bastion Core burns brighter, veins of molten gold threading through his chest.
"You will release him," Armilio says.
Each word lands like a verdict.
Malfious laughs softly. Not mocking. Curious.
"And who are you," he asks, "to tell me what to do?"
Armilio does not answer.
He raises one arm.
The air thickens. Gravity deepens. The chamber compresses inward as if reality itself is bracing. Unbreak expands, not as a shield, but as a declaration. Nothing here is allowed to fail.
Malfious's eyes narrow.
"So that is your name," he says lightly. "Armilio."
Sage stiffens beside me.
She heard it too.
I feel it settle in my chest like a stone dropped into water. Heavy. Final.
Armilio.
The Will That Does Not Move.
Malfious rolls his neck once, casual, like this is an inconvenience rather than a confrontation.
"I wondered how long it would take before you crawled out of whatever shrine they buried you in."
His gaze flicks to me again.
"And you," he adds, voice sharpening, "are far more interesting than the last time we met."
I do not respond.
I step forward.
The blade hums, feeding on my intent. Psy coils tight around my spine. Shakore's thunder snarls under my skin, begging to be released again.
"You do not get to talk," I say. "Not here. Not now."
Malfious tilts his head. "You think this is your battlefield?"
"Yes," I answer. "Because you are standing on it."
I move.
This time, I do not rush him.
I split.
One step becomes three. Obsidian fractures my outline. Afterimages trail behind me, not speed, but intention overlapping itself. I strike from the side while the bow forms in my other hand, an arrow already screaming into existence.
Malfious reacts instantly.
Too late.
The blade slices across his side. It does not cut flesh. It cuts coherence. His form distorts, edges tearing like a reflection hit with a stone.
The arrow hits a heartbeat later.
The chamber erupts.
Lightning floods the space, red and blue tearing free of control, spiraling into violent purple arcs that crawl across the walls. The shockwave slams into Malfious and drives him back into a pillar of stone.
Armilio advances.
Each step is final.
Malfious pushes himself free of the rubble, cloak of void unraveling and reforming around him. His expression is no longer amused.
"You should not be able to do that," he says quietly.
"I am done caring what I should be," I reply.
Sage raises her hands.
Metal shrieks.
Killiden fragments embedded in the chamber walls rip free, bending toward her like iron filings to a magnet. They orbit her in a tight, controlled halo, vibrating with lethal intent.
She looks at me, eyes steady.
"Tell me where."
I nod once.
Malfious spreads his arms.
The void answers.
Darkness blooms behind him, not shadow, not absence, but a wrongness that devours shape and meaning. The chamber's edges blur. Sound dulls. Even Armilio's presence strains against it.
"Very well," Malfious says. "Let us see how far you climb."
The void surges.
Armilio plants his feet.
Unbreak flares.
The collision is violent.
Stone and nothing slam together. The shock tears through the chamber, ripping stalactites from the ceiling, folding space in jagged waves. Sage staggers but holds, magnetism screaming as she anchors herself to the very bones of the world.
I scream and push back.
Not with strength.
With will.
Psy detonates outward, raw and uncontrolled. Memories flash through me in fragments. Lucy's smile. Scarlett's voice. The island. The blade. Nazz's laughter. Shakore's death scream. My father's name, heavy and unresolved.
Everything pours forward.
The void recoils.
Malfious stumbles.
Just one step.
Armilio takes advantage.
His fist slams into Malfious's chest.
The sound is not an impact.
It is a mountain collapsing.
The chamber fractures. Reality howls. Malfious is driven back, skidding across stone, carving a trench through the floor before slamming into the far wall.
Silence crashes down.
Dust drifts.
Malfious straightens slowly.
His form flickers. Cracks of void light pulse beneath his skin.
He looks at us.
Truth looks.
"…Interesting," he says softly.
I raise the blade again.
"This ends," I say.
He smiles.
"No," he replies. "This begins."
And the void behind him opens wider.
Malfious laughs again, quieter this time. Measured. Like he is choosing each word for maximum damage.
"The first time we fought," he says, eyes never leaving mine, "you had the ice witch on your side. Glae."
The name hits the chamber like a dropped blade.
Armilio freezes.
Not metaphorically. Not figuratively.
His entire frame locks in place. The slow tectonic motion beneath his stone skin halts. Even the Bastion Core dims for a fraction of a second, like a heart skipping a beat.
I feel it too.
A cold memory. A voice wrapped in frost. A presence that carried both judgment and protection.
Malfious notices immediately.
"Oh," he says softly, pleased. "Yes. That reaction. You remember her."
Armilio turns his head toward me. Slowly. Carefully. As if afraid the movement itself might fracture something ancient.
"You knew her," Armilio says.
It is not a question.
Malfious lifts a finger.
"Careful," he murmurs. "This is where truth starts to bruise."
He steps forward, boots crunching over broken stone.
"Back then," he continues, "I was incomplete. Barely assembled. Thirty percent, if you enjoy numbers." His eyes flick briefly to Sage, then back to me. "Still enough to turn your world into a graveyard, but not enough to enjoy it."
Sage tightens her stance. The killiden fragments around her vibrate harder, pulled taut by her focus.
Malfious spreads his arms slightly, void energy rippling beneath his skin.
"Now," he says, voice deepening, gaining weight, "I am closer to myself. Eighty percent."
The chamber groans.
The void behind him swells, pressing against Unbreak like a tide testing a dam. Even Armilio's presence strains under it. Not breaking. But bending.
Malfious tilts his head, studying me like a calculation.
"Considering how much you struggled with a third of me," he asks calmly, "how do you think you will fare now?"
I do not answer right away.
The blade hums in my hand, restless. Psy coils tighter, scraping against my ribs. Shakore's thunder snarls again, impatient, angry. Memories flash uninvited. Glae standing between worlds. Her ice holding back annihilation. Her eyes when she realized what I was becoming.
Armilio speaks instead.
"You speak of percentages," he says, voice steady, immovable. "As if existence is divisible."
Malfious smiles at him. Thin. Sharp.
"Everything is divisible," he replies. "Even you."
That does it.
I step forward.
Not in rage. Not in desperation.
In clarity.
"You are wrong about one thing," I say.
Malfious raises an eyebrow.
"I did not struggle," I continue. "I survived. There is a difference."
The void pulses.
Sage glances at me, quick and worried.
I meet her eyes for half a second.
Then I look back at Malfious.
"You are not facing the same thing you fought before," I say. "Neither am I."
Malfious's smile widens.
"Good," he says. "Then this might finally be worth remembering."
The void surges forward.
Armilio steps between us, planting himself like a living wall.
Sage raises her hands.
And I lift the blade.
This time, I do not brace for impact.
I welcome it.
Malfious does not hesitate.
He lunges.
The distance between us vanishes like it never existed. One moment he stands beyond Armilio's shadow, the next the void is screaming toward my face.
Sage moves before I do.
She throws her arm forward and killiden snaps into place, layered and dense, a translucent shield blooming in front of me with a sharp crystalline ring. The impact is immediate.
Malfious slams into it.
The collision does not explode.
It compresses.
The shield bows inward, screaming under pressure, fractures spiderwebbing across its surface as void energy grinds against hardened will. Sage grits her teeth, boots carving trenches into the stone floor as she holds.
For half a second, she succeeds.
Malfious tilts his head.
Then he kicks.
Not hard. Not fast. Precise.
His heel strikes the center of the shield and Unmake ripples outward. The killiden does not shatter. It forgets what it is.
The shield collapses in on itself and Sage is launched backward, her body skipping across the ground before slamming into a pillar hard enough to crater it. She gasps, breath torn from her lungs, sliding to one knee.
"Sage," I shout.
Malfious is already past me.
Armilio moves.
The ground groans as he surges forward, stone plates grinding, Bastion Core flaring brighter as Unbreak floods outward. His fist comes down like a continent deciding to fall.
Malfious does not dodge.
He raises his hand.
And slaps Armilio aside.
The sound is wrong. Too light for the force behind it. The impact twists Armilio's massive frame mid-charge, sending him crashing through columns, carving a trench through ancient stone before he finally stops, half-buried in rubble.
The Bastion Core flickers. Not broken. Shaken.
I feel something cold settle in my chest.
He did that casually.
Malfious turns back to me, dust settling around his boots, expression bored.
"You see?" he says. "This is what I meant by growth."
My grip tightens around the blade. Psy surges, scraping against my nerves, screaming to be released. Shakore's electricity crawls up my arm, red and blue snapping together into violent purple arcs.
I step forward.
This time, there is no shield between us.
No remnant standing in front of me.
Just him.
And me.
"You rushed the wrong one," I say, voice low, rough, carrying something that is not fully mine anymore.
Malfious smiles.
"Good," he replies. "Show me how much of you is still pretending."
I lunge.
No warning. No buildup. I close the gap like instinct finally got tired of waiting for permission
He lunges too.
Our arms collide mid-charge.
Not blades. Not weapons. Flesh, bone, will.
The impact does not sound like a strike. It sounds like pressure breaking reality's jaw. Strength crashes into strength, power grinding against power, aura screaming as it compresses between us. The air buckles. The floor fractures. The entire structure groans like it wants to fold itself inward just to escape us.
White energy bleeds out from the point of contact.
Not light. Not darkness.
Feedback.
Our forces bounce off each other, refusing to yield, refusing to cancel out, and the recoil has nowhere to go. It burns through our arms like acid made of sound and intent.
I scream through my teeth.
My arm chars. Skin splits. Nerves light up like exposed wire. Pain floods in hot and absolute, the kind that demands surrender.
He stiffens.
Confusion flashes across his face.
Pain.
Real pain.
It is the first time he has ever felt it, and I see it rattle him. His aura stutters. His control slips for a fraction of a second.
That is all I need.
I release my locked arm and twist, driving my other fist straight into his face.
The hit lands clean.
The shockwave follows him.
He goes flying.
Wall after wall caves in as his body tears through the structure, stone exploding, ancient metal screaming as it gives way. Dust clouds swallow him whole as the building starts losing arguments with gravity.
I stagger, arm smoking, breath ragged, vision swimming.
Then the rage hits him.
I feel it before I see it.
He erupts from the debris and is on me in an instant, leg arcing up in a brutal kick aimed straight for my core. I brace and block, forearms crossing, impact rattling my spine and driving me backward through fractured flooring.
He follows through with a punch.
It connects.
My head snaps sideways. Stars burst behind my eyes. I spin with the momentum, boots scraping, barely keeping my balance.
I turn back-
Too late.
He raises his hand and fires a beam of condensed energy straight into the ceiling.
Not at me.
At the roof.
The beam punches through support and stone alike, ripping a glowing scar across the structure. The ceiling answers immediately, sections collapsing in a roaring cascade.
"Sage!" I scream.
Stone and debris crash down where she stands.
Dust swallows everything.
The sound is deafening.
My throat tightens.
No.
No no no.
I force my burning arm to move, stagger forward through falling debris, eyes locked on the collapsing section as the building continues to come apart around us.
He wanted this.
He wanted me distracted.
And for the first time since this fight started, fear cuts through the rage.
Sharp.
Focused.
Personal.